BLKMGK

Aw Scottie - now you've got me thinking! VERY timely thread man! I just wish there was an off the shelf header for this I think in the end I'll wind up forced induction - I'm just not sure how yet and I want the car running first! Talk about a conversation piece....

Have you checked the other usual places? If it's managed to rust there I'd be shocked if th ebattery tray at least wasn't in toruble. Check carefully otherwise I agree - that one spot migh tnot be too bad. Check the interior where that went through to make sure there's nothing nasty going on inside...

Doh! I just yesterday sent my arms over to the powdercoating shop! Going to be Red Barron red including the mustache bar and all of the other parts I was able to undo back there except for shafts, rear, and struts. They wanted my first born but it shoudl look nice for years to come and be tough as nails. for those of you putting on these arms I'd reccomend investing in powdercoating - in my experience it beats paint hands down.

Honestly guys - I'd pay $150 if that's what it took to help defray tooling costs etc. I think the stock Maxima brackets from the dealer cost nearly that right? Welding is obviously FAR cheaper but it's much more permanent and I've got a feeling I could be changing brake setups like I do pairs of jeans. I've already got billet envy of Mike! (lol)

Guys, I think I owe at least a few of you an apology. I'm not sure exactly what set me off but I think my tone was quite a bit too strong! I wasn't meaning to point fingers and I guess maybe something just sort of made me snap - I'm sorry. The tech article mentioned does do a pretty good job of it. Someone might want to hunt up the part numbers for the studs from ARP and I did manage to do mine with the strut onthe bench. Perhaps a few pics if someone who's in the middle of this copnversion could snap them. Mine's already drilled Do watch the little metal dust cover looking things that are aorund the stock studs. It doesn't drill easily and I had to hold mine with a vise grip to drill it. If it bends too much it rubs when th ehub spins - I left my stub axles in the hubs but might pull them to powdercoat the strut if it's not too hard. Oh, and the front hubs drill MUCH easier than the rears! Not sure what it's made of but it drilled real nice for the ARPs using the 300ZX's old holes as pilots.

Okay, so I'd need a set of later stub axles, the CVs, the adapter, and some welding done which would be facilitated by a groove on the adapter. Oh, and some bolts to hold the bits together? I think I can handle that I'd be interested when the prices are put together - what the hell it's only money!

I've not had the B303 in my car personally but I HAVE seen it in others. It has a slight lump to it IMO but not real bad. Wasn't easy getting it to pass emissions here and in fact migh tnot have been passable at all - a little fuzzy on that. I believe that a lot of blower guys liked them How much of the off the shelf 5.0 stuff can you guys use? My friend's shop often has stuff going in and out both used and new. If there's something in particualr you're looking for I can keep an eye out for you...

Yes and no IMHO. Yes, you could get that power. Yes, it could be driveable. Yes, it ought to start and run fine in bad weather. Yeah, the woman could drive it but God help you if for some reason she felt she had to floor it to avoiod an accident - trust me on this. Build in some turbo lag and perhaps that would help. There's at least one site out there with twin turbo Ford motors making sicko' power if you can find it - might be worth reading The only area I'd be less than sure could be done would be the mileage and the cruise at 1800RPM. You might also have trouble getting it to go 100K miles without rebuild. Build a STRONG bottom end and run highish boost with low RPM - should be fine. In fact I've got a turbo book that details a build that might fit this bill - possibly less HP. The most interesting thing of the build was their first pull on the dyno - engine exploded! The bottom end with pink rods couldn't take the torque and NOTHING was salvagable. Ouch! Do you really NEED 700hp? How will you put it to the ground?

John, where did you find that series? I've got a couple of parts of that series bought new when it came out but I'd really like to get them in better shape and have the whole series too! TIA! P.S. Which months had them? I seem to recall it wasn't in a straight run and skipped a month or two here and there...

Just to be clear(er)... If it's an 84 I'm pretty sure it's just an R200. If it's got a finned cover and the wheels both turn the same direction at once THEN get excited I called all over the place around here trying to find a clutch LSD with no luck. One of the other members here had a spare and I got it for the going rate out on the 'net. Same with the back brace I'm using to keep the aluminum finned cover. You might want this so hunt around here for it - the cover looks pretty cool even with a fin or two snapped off Don't suppose anyone has a cover in even better shape they'd like to get rid of? (grin)

Heh, even WITH a punch I got one hole slightly off and had a bear of a time putting the rotor down onto the hub register. It did finally go but it was a little bit of work to do. Do this carefully and if you've got the ability to lathe a punch consider doing it or hit SCCA up for one. I think the wheel will spin true in the end, the rotor is sitting flat now. /soapbox on Now, could I have researched all of this and done it myself without SCCA's parts? Probably but why? He's done it. Sold the parts for a reasonable cost, and was there when I E-mailed him bunches(!) of questions. I have ZERO problem paying someone a fair price for some of their knowledge - just gophering the parts all up and sending them to me was helpful! I'm doing all 4 wheels BTW. Shipping was fair too, no handling charges or profit on shipping at all unlike some vendors. What's not to like? UPS guy shows up, I goto work on the car... I've still got a little ways to go and want bolt-on brackets but what incentive does he have to do ANY of this if he makes nothing from it? Not all of us have ready access to a machine shop and some things are too expensive to have done onesy twoesy in shops all spread out across the planet. If MikeSCCA can have stuff done in a central shop for less and we reap the benefits of his labor more power to him! Hell, if I just had more TIME maybe I'd scrounge this stuff myself but TIME is the one thing I've NOT got these days. I can understand everyone wanting to do things cheaply and maybe chaffing that someone doesn't freely give away what they've sweated to learn but how hard is to understand that this stuff isn't in a book and took work to develop? Sharing is great if we ALL benefit. IMO I got a fair deal from SCCA on both the knowledge and the parts he sold me, hence my willingness to recommend him to others. Document all you want but let's at least recognize his effort and buy from him when what he offers is fair. I just get the feeling sometimes that folks want to go around other's hard work even when we're not being gouged. Would I pay $100 in profit for someone to figure something like this out (4wheels remember), support me when I need it, and gopher the parts up? Hell yes! I don't know what his profit was but it might not have even been that (shrug). It's one thing when M*A repackages someone else's weather stripping and nearly doubles the cost, quite another to pay fairly. If we don't treat the folks who do us right nicely where will they be down the road? There are few enough people still in the Z community now - do we want still fewer?! Let's try to show our gratitude please... /soapbox off FWIW - I only know SCCA from the many e-mails we've traded while I'vew whined with questions and he's helped me out. Not even spoken to him on the phone. I found his WEB site through Zcar many moons ago and discussed a brake upgrade with him before he even began posting here. I might have even been the one that pointed him over here! I owe him nothing but he's earned respect from me because he was responsive and I felt I was treated fairly. He's still plugging away trying to figure out even better upgrades and I think his knowledge is useful here - let's not all piss him off P.S. Alsil has the swap pretty well documented BTW. I didn't have to pull my stubs thank goodness! I had the strut out of the car for my drilling and what a bear it was until I listened to SCCA about bit selection leading up to the final size. I purchased my final bit from MSCDirect.com for like $13 - you'll need a half inch chuck (grr). Done right you don't need a super special drill bit and not using oil on the it actually helped per SCCA's advice.

Aww man! Now you're going to have better brakes than me! Bleah! I want to see them when you've got them done - maybe I'll upgrade down the road when the car actually rolls on it's own power again.... Do please document the swap!

My experience was a bit different... I ordered from them while they were on vactaion it seems. When I got worried I sent them E-mail and they responded quyickly - the parts were already on the way. Parts arrived a bit dirty but no worse than what was already on the car - this was a rear control arm BTW. Little rust, no bad grease on it, and it was straight -whew! For $25 I was happy - I should've ordered 2! Oh, I did point out to them that their order page wasn't protected with SSL and that this was a concern. He didn't know what SSL was so I explained it to him and included links to several other sites that further explained what SSL was and why it was important - I never heard back (sigh). All in all it was a good experience and I'd buy from them again. I'd prefer an SSL based order form though heh, now about those CVs....

I have officially crossed my fingers

I've got two Momo Wheels - oneon my car and one out of my parts car. Like some of the others I get a little icky thinking about Grant - partially because some of the adapters I've seen for them are pretty poor quality (sigh). The Momo wheels I've got aren't new but seem to have worn very well and I'm sticking with them. Pete, if you happen to wander down this way I'd be more than happy to show them to you and maybe part with the wheel that's not currently on the car. FWIW - I've looked at some of the Grant wheels. The "carbo tech" type wheel looked neat but I worried it would heat up in the Summer too much. I'm just thankful I've already got a good wheel and don't have to go through this decisions - it would be a tough one! Oh, and I believe that if you pick out a hweel from MSA it'll be a Grant when it hits your doorstep. I've heard bitching on other boards that what they display is a Momo type wheel with no logo but that they ship Grants. Buyer beware...

Yuo don't have to tear the dash out - they pull from the rear somewhat easily. In my case I'm simply going to swap out all of th egauges including the tach and speedo for Phantom gauges. I've not YET purchased the tach and speedo though since supposedly Autometer is going to improve the speedo with an LCD tripmeter here soon - per one of their techs The 5inch jobs slide right in apparently - fun fun!

I'm interested too but need to fully understand what would be needed in the way of parts. I've already got an R200 with what I ASSume is 240 stubs in it. To move to CVs I'd need your adapter and for strength - new stubs? CVs obviously too As I recall, one of th eissues discussed with the previous CV conversions was compressing the joint too much. If this gets us past that and allows the use of assumably stronger and certainly smoother CVs I'm all for it. I'm not sure I trust the U-joint setup and I know the CVs are smoother - where's the downside? $150 for CVs? That's a drop in the bucket all things considered I'm afraid... I'd also be VERY interested in someone setting up a conversion to the later model VLSD rear and some Maxima brackets to bolt on I swear I'm tempted to get hold of one of those VLSDs and just tinker with it to see how hard it owuld be - I've never even seen a pic of one yet...

Low 14s?! LOL! Dude, that drivetrain should've done low 14's in the car you're pulling it from if geared and setup correctly. Put it in a Z that weighs a thousand pounds less and I think you'll be very pleasantly surprised I'll bet you end up with mid 13s at least if you can hook it up and have decent gearing. Should be a blast!

Heh, Mike I guess I shold've mentioned that I have one of those 45degree fillers here as a spare huh? I wanted to put my cell in to fill from the rear but with the middle fill it just weasn't going to work. So... My tank is mounted flush with the rear deck. The aluminum covering it is sealed and there's a little "house" over the fill with a trap door in it. This keeps the cell up off the ground and (hopefully) still conforms to the NHRA rulings about having the fill outside the car. I'll try to find as pic to put up if anyone is really interested in this setup. The most aggravating thin so far has been the rollover valve. This is a Triangle tank and everyone sells a rollover valve (nice one!) right next to these tanks in the listings - mine does NOT fit! I still don't know what size fitting the top of my damned tank has...

Are you sure it's releasing fully? No oil on it? How much power and what kind of traciton are you getting? The F-body forums ought to be full of folks with advice on this. I'm actually going to try running the used stock clutch on my car. I figure with the lesser weight and iffy traction I should be fine. I'm puzzled that you're having trouble with the Centerforce - it's a decent street clutch...

Congrats - it looks good! With such a light car it ough tto eat plenty of higher horsepower cars with no problems. You'll have fun and a good basis to go even faster if you choose. For that matter, if you used good pistons a shot of NOS will bring that HP up a good bit pretty cheaply. As for a trans - you're not far from me. Try cheking out the Want Ads that are put out by the Auto Trader folks - most an 7-11 will have them. There are ALWAYS tons of transmissions in there. I'd say go for a 700R4 or 200R4 before I'd go th350. There are too many highways around here where people fly along at 75+. Having driven these roads in a Vega with 4.30 gears, a th400, and itty bitty tires let me tell you it's no fun! Thank God I had no tach in that car - I'd have cried

My advice Jamie is to really think about this hard. Bodywork and such is th ehardest part of doing this swap - it costs bunches too. I popped $3K for a car that I thought needed little bodywork. In the end I found a bunch of rust. When I finally got a bodyshop estimate they wanted close to $4K just for starters! I looked around and ofund a car that had almost no rust, a perfect interior, and some good parts that I'll be able to sell when I do my swap. Cost was $5K - almost what the previus car's bodywork would've cost and I know that price would've climbed. I ended up parting that previous car out as much as I could and giving it to Mikelly for $100 hoping that he'd be able to build his second car with it. Don't make the same mistake I did! Buy a nice car for your swap if possible. This $200 car might be good for parts if nothing else but don't throw away good money if you can help it....

Easiest way to do it? Call up SCCA and have him ship the parts - convert to ARP studs while you're at it too. You will have to drill as Mike stated but I've done it and it's not too bad so long as you follow SCCA's instructions to the letter. He's done the research and th eparts through him are reasonable IMO. The hardest part is the bracket to hold the caliper on - presently we're being forced to weld on the hub, I personally would prefer a bolt-on mount. SCCA is researching this and many of us are hoping he's successful Oh, and this gives you rear disc brakes too. You didn't mention wnating them but to get 5 lug you'll wind up with them - a small sacrifice

If nothing stay away from the 94 and up computers - they stink. Same with the computer from the 93 Cobra - timing curve and fuel curve is pretty bad...

If folks need some small stuff hosted I can do it here. I'm not always up but I am for th emost part and the drive has a couple of gig free Just a 144K connection though and no domain name - yet. Need to think of one...